Children's Commissioner The Big Future survey

In the five years since my first survey of England’s children, the landscape of childhood has changed rapidly. Mental health referrals have increased by around half a million, more children are spending long periods of time online, and a growing number require additional support at school.

How the government responds to those changes will shape what it’s like to grow up in England for years to come.

Listening once is never enough. This will be my third and final major survey of children. Speaking to children, asking them what they want, and acting on it, has been the approach I want to be the hallmark of my time as Children’s Commissioner.

There is a growing sense – in Westminster, in the media, and our wider national mood – that something is going wrong with childhood. Older generations believe the young are worse off than they were, and this belief is starting to trickle down the age range: childhood is not what it once was.

This is unsurprising, in some ways. This generation of children is on the brink of adulthood, having witnessed huge change: from the impact of the pandemic, to rising crime in their communities, to the new dominance of AI and tech. These are things that are shaping children’s lives now – not just things to worry about in the future.

Childhood is changing – but we are struggling to express how, why, or exactly how we feel about it. We are finding it even harder to respond.

And throughout all this change, decision makers are failing to listen to them.
When their schools closed, they were not consulted. We reopened pubs before we reopened schools.

When they told us about the dangerous things they were seeing online, we were too slow to act. More children spend more time online than ever, seeing worse content.
They have told us how to make their homes and communities safer – yet one million still live in destitution, after years of consistently rising child poverty.

But we know how to improve things. When we listen to children about the new and emerging challenges in their lives: the things that worry them, the things they love, the ways they have fun, and the changes they want for a better future.

I will be working relentlessly to listen to one million children, especially those who are often the hardest to reach, before the survey closes on October 23rd.

Ambitious? Yes. But children deserve nothing less than the soaring heights of our ambition.